


Know Your Paradoxes

by Schalakitty



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M, Postive Cecilos Fic Drive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 18:18:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1397800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schalakitty/pseuds/Schalakitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos runs into a StrexCorp android while grocery shopping and handles a tricky situation. Set after "Orange Grove" at the earliest, but most likely set after "Condos."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Know Your Paradoxes

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the wonderful [LarissaFae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LarissaFae/pseuds/LarissaFae) for beta-reading this!

Technically, he was abusing his privilege as Night Vale's Favorite Scientist. But so far, no one at the Ralph's had ever complained about him pressing the tip of a small portable voltammetric electronic tongue against the skin of various fruits and vegetables to test for both ripeness and explosiveness. If anyone even asked, he could just say he was “doing science” and they would accept that as a reasonable explanation. 

Carefully placing a few beets in a bag – thankful to once again have a full selection of produce rather than simply _oranges_ – he wondered if Cecil would like a nice salad for dinner. Just as he turned towards the arugula, a high-pitched and falsely pleasant voice greeted him with, “Hello, Dr. Rosario.” 

His proper title made him stop but the use of his surname instantly alerted him to something being very wrong. _No one_ in Night Vale called him Dr. Rosario – it was always “Carlos the Scientist,” or “Mr. Scientist” if someone was feeling formal. (It wasn't worth correcting them to say “Dr. Scientist” or even “Dr. The Scientist.” “Scientist” was the important part, after all, but still, he had earned that Ph.D. and wouldn't mind a little recognition now and again.) 

Turning towards the voice, he found a man in a blood-splattered suit and equally soiled red tie waving at him. It took hardly a cursory glance for him to identify the man as a StrexCorp robot – the clearly mechanical eyes always gave it away, but so did the smell of cheap plastic, the glossy saran hair, and the clear seams along the edges of unnaturally pale skin. Honestly, Carlos had seen higher quality Gundam models than the android before him. 

But he decided to just humor the poor, cheap robot for bit. “How can I help you...” He drifted off at the end, waiting to see if a name would be provided. 

“Greg!” It? he? responded. Carlos really wasn't sure how gender worked with artificial intelligences. For a higher level one, sure, you could argue that a truly sentient sense of self could also extend to possessing a gender identity. But for a pretty basic one, was it a case of over-anthropomorphizing to thrust a gender identity onto it, even if its creators had clearly chosen one for it? For the moment, the scientist decided to go with “he” rather than “it” or one of the many carefully nuanced gender neutral pronouns common in Night Vale like “xe,” “ze,” “hu,” “per,” or “⁂.” 

He spent a bit longer than expected mulling over the intersection of robotics and gender studies, leading Greg to simply continue, “I just wanted to let you know that StrexCorp™ has recently banned the use of bloodstones. I'm sure you've seen the fliers around town but since I have you right here, I figured I'd give you a gentle reminder.” 

Unconsciously, he ran his fingers over the bloodstone pendant hanging around his neck. His one month anniversary present from Cecil – a relic from the time of the Olden Faith, before the mass manufacture of bloodstones when the Abandoned Mineshaft was still in use and free wifi was only a distant, glimmering hope of the future. Perfectly smooth and polished on the front with ancient runes carved into the back, ones that made iridescent ichor leak from his tablet when he tried to draw them for cross-referencing. Wholly weird, simply unique, and absolutely _perfect_. And there was no way he would let any part of Strex touch it. Not after everything they had already dared to take from Cecil. 

His other hand gripped tight around his shopping basket at the memory of all the ways they'd hurt his boyfriend but he managed to hold everything else in check. For now.

Over the past year, Carlos had grown adept at finding loopholes within the nightmare of bureaucratic red tape that made up the Night Vale city by-laws. A combination stylus/pen counted as an input device rather than a writing implement and even then, so long as he decorated his notes with enough doodles, he could claim any pen as a drawing tool. This time, it was almost too easy. “The ban is against the manufacture of bloodstones and their use in the rights and rituals of the Night Vale folk religion, and I participate in neither of those activities. I am wearing this piece of heliotrope for purely ornamental purposes.” 

“Ornamental purposes still counts under the broad category of 'use' according to the End-User License Agreement,” Greg answered automatically, the words spoken with chipper precision. “All residents of Night Vale have agreed to the EULA, Terms and Conditions, and Contract of Soul Adhesion with StrexCorp™ via their continued existence within city limits – and 'all residents' covers any and all sentient beings and particularly opinionated inanimate objects.” 

The robot smiled then, revealing even, symmetrical, and highly polished metallic teeth. “So I'll just have to confiscate that illegal paraphernalia, if you wouldn't mind...” With a barely audible whirl, Greg started to reach out, fingers clicking into place with rough, staccato movements. 

Huffing in annoyance, Carlos took a smooth step back and then spoke clearly and firmly, “This statement is false.” 

He watched Greg jerk a little but it didn't seem to slow him down much. Damn, they must have updated the firmware on the robots to survive encounters with common paradoxes. Luckily, Carlos' previous employer had held training sessions on how to handle rouge AI and the posters plastered around the office had certainly helped to drive the point home. 

He knew his paradoxes and planned to have fun with it.

“A thousand grains of sand makes a heap, right?” Carlos began, already mentally queuing up a few more if this one didn't work. “And if I take away one grain, it is still a heap. How many grains of sand do I have to take away before it is not a heap? Could even one grain of sand be considered a heap?”

The robot gave a slow blink then and his mouth pulled back into an even more unnerving grimace. “We can talk about how much sand there is in the world once we take care of that paraphernalia.” 

So, it looked like Carlos needed something a little stronger. “If you replaced every single part of a tan Corolla, starting with the hubcaps, could you still call it the same car?” Greg's motions came to a halt then, his face drawing into a tight grimace. 

“S-StrexCorp™ offers a line of affordable co-compact cars compaaarable to the T-t-toyota Corrrollllla,” the robot stuttered out, vocal synthesizer skipping and cracking as he tried to avoid crashing. 

Without missing a beat, Carlos brought up another question. “A barber offers to cut the hair of all the men in town who do not cut their own hair. Does the barber cut his own hair?” 

“Baaaaaaarber-r-r-r-r?” The synthesizer was showing the strain now, the single word dragged out into a strangely musical, Auto-Tuned tones. 

Really, it was almost cruel to continue confounding the poor over-taxed android... but it wasn't as though members of StrexCorp (artificial or otherwise) deserved any mercy. “An alligator steals a child and will only return her if the father can correctly predict what the alligator will do. What will the alligator do if the father predicts that the alligator will not return the child?” Carlos prompted, barely managing to keep a straight face through the entire question. 

The sparking began not long after, sludge slowly dripping from the corner of Greg's mouth. He took another step forward then, the motion labored and jerky. Even with the robot on his last legs, Carlos' hand drifted toward the stun gun carefully tucked into his utility belt, just in case. (He was a scientist, not a fighter. But he had lived in Night Vale long enough to know that logic and reason only went so far and it helped to have a few million volts of electricity at the ready.) 

It proved unnecessary, though, as the android tumbled to the scuffed linoleum with an almost comical clanging sound. Carlos waited several moments to be sure he was actually incapacitated before confirming with a light tap of his boot against one shoulder. Before any strangely glowing, hooded janitors (he had secretly nicknamed them Jedi Janitors, which was a joke lost on Cecil as Star Wars had been banned by the City Council due to being “Anti-Blood Space War Propaganda”) could clean up the mess, he very quickly snapped on a pair of latex gloves and pulled a test tube and pipette from his bag to gather up some of that sludge for chemical analysis back at the lab. 

From just behind a Sabra hummus display, he caught sight of Josh Crayton and Hanu Saki Cyberghost Mark III each giving him a thumbs-up and a short nod of approval. While not the fiercest fighters in Tamika Flynn's army, they did good work on recon. Especially after Night Vale's most newsworthy group of scientists had surreptitiously donated some heavily-modified CB radios. He nodded back right before affixing the stopper on his test tube and stashing it away. 

Just then, the janitor floated up beside him, bathed in a soft blue light. And even though he was wearing a hooded robe, Carlos would've bet his boxed set of _Cosmos_ that he looked exactly like Sir Alec Guinness. “This is the droid you're looking for,” he ventured, motioning to the inactive robot... and then felt just a bit frustrated when the joke fell flat. “I'll have you know, that would've been _hilarious_ outside of Night Vale.” he complained to the impassive janitor. But really, no one seemed to get his brand of dry wit within the city. Not even Cecil found today's t-shirt (“I'm not a mad scientist. Just a disappointed scientist,” it declared in a white serif font on black fabric) all that funny. 

Waved away from the mess, he had to resist asking about the strangely glowing mop the janitor pulled out (he recognized the classic lightsaber _whoosh_ but that was totally a mop) and instead refocused on what really mattered. Unclipping his phone from his belt, Carlos took a moment to appreciate his boyfriend's bright smile on his lock screen before hitting the speed dial. 

“Hello Cecil,” he started off warmly as he returned to shopping. “I was thinking that after a long week, you should be pampered tonight. So I'll make dinner and a batch of those Nutella monster cookies you like so much and afterward, we'll spend the night cuddled up on the couch with a classic western of your choice.” 

Chuckling softly at Cecil's enthusiastic agreement, he headed towards the baking aisle. “Alright, I'll see you soon, then,” he replied, and then took a breath to steady himself. He was getting better about saying it but it still made his heart flutter every time. “I love you too. Goodbye.”

**Author's Note:**

> Voltammetric electronic tongues are a type of sensor used in science to detect a wide variety of chemicals for things like testing the sugar and acidity levels to determine the ripeness of grapes or detecting TNT. I figured finding produce that was both ripe and not prone to exploding would be important to Carlos.
> 
> If you need a photo reference for a bloodstone pendant, [here is the beautiful one my amazing girlfriend made for me. ](http://shinythingsbyorindrake.tumblr.com/post/79392048125/made-for-my-girlfriend-for-her-birthday-i-wanted) (Did I mention that she is amazing and that this pendant is beautiful?)
> 
> I used a variety of classic paradoxes for this fic, I just “Night Vale'd” them up a bit. 
> 
> If you really want to, I made it so you could [get Carlos' T-shirt through Spreadshirt.](http://www.spreadshirt.com/design-your-own-t-shirt-C59/product/1000086125/view/1/sb/l) (Note: I get $0 for this, I just made the basic design sharable.)
> 
> Also, you can get [his recipe for gluten-free Nutella monster cookies.](http://www.somethingswanky.com/nutella-monster-cookies/)


End file.
